First of all, what is a Button Quail? Buttons are the smallest of the "true" quails, about four inches long, and are native to Australia, Southeast Asia, India, etc. Click here for a map of the distribution of the Button Quail. In addition to the normal "wild type", they come in silver, white, browns and various combinations and shades of these colors, also known as "mutations". Unfortunately, our buttons do not have a very long lifespan; females' can be as short as 18 months, but if they are given proper care and nutrition (see below), you can expect your button hen to live three to four years or even more. Males average four to five years (again, depending on care and nutrition), but I have heard of at least a few male buttons who lived to be as old as nine!

There are actually several different species of birds sharing the name "Button Quail", and they are all not necessarily related. The Button you will see pictured on my pages is commonly referred to as the "Chinese Painted Quail", and is a member of the order Galliformes, family phasianidae. The other birds that we call "buttonquails" are of the order Gruiformes, family turnicidae. These "buttonquails" are not commonly kept in aviculture, are quite difficult to breed, and in fact, there are only a couple of them in captivity in the U.S. at this time!
On a separate page, I've compiled a list of some button species as well as some amusing translations from around the world.

I've been really lucky to have some wonderful tame button quails in my life;
first Baby Spaz, then Bunny, Hercules, PeeWee and Praddle. There's nothing more adorable than having a little button follow you around the house, or come running when you call to them.
But I realize that it takes a lot of patience and attention to get this sort
of bird to accept us as one of their own. It's not something you can force
on them, so don't be mad at your Button if he prefers the company of other
quails. Of course, a Button Quail who is not tame should have at least one other
quail for company, so if you think you'd like to go quail shopping, look
for pairs or trios that have been housed together; don't break up that
happy quail family! The rest of this page is devoted to information I have
found useful in caring for my quails, past and present, and I hope you'll
be able to find something in it that will help make your quail experience
truly fabulous!

Unique Birds, Adorable Pets.

Buttons are small, neat, and relatively quiet, (although they do have a fairly extensive "vocabulary" that you will come to understand if you take the time!). Their antics are always amusing, and they are very active, always searching the ground for seeds and other finds. Button quails can become very tame, especially if raised by hand, and if you are patient enough, may be willing to eat from your hand or even let you scratch under their chin!

Many people keep button quails in the bottom of their aviary, for variety as well as to help clean up spilled seed. This is fine, as long as the other birds' droppings are cleaned out often and the quails are not overcrowded. Because their feet are not made for perching, but rather for walking, their floor must not be wire, instead use cedar or pine shavings. Newspaper is not a good idea, as the droppings will just lay on the surface and your quails will be left walking around in you know what! Traditional bird cages are an option, as long as the floor space is sufficient (minimum of four square feet for one or two) and the inner top of the cage is padded to protect against the "Boink Factor" (see below). This can be done quite easily by wiring an inexpensive piece of foam, 1" or thicker, to the inner top of the cage.

Food and water must be accessible to the quail on the floor of their home. Make sure the food dish is not something their little toes will get caught in! The best thing I have found for a waterer is a hanging dispenser that only allows a bit of water to come out at a time, with a larger amount in the reservoir. This keeps the water fresh and clean, whereas a bowl of water would quickly become dirty as the quail would be walking through it all the time and tracking stuff into it.

Left: A couple of Button Quail homes with "Boink-Proof-Roofs". The one in the back is made from an old coffee table, turned upside down, with fiberglass window screening staple-gunned inside the legs of the table.

If you want to keep button quails simply because they are so cool, and not for an aviary, keep in mind that they are not like other birds in that they are ground dwellers and cannot perch. This means that floor space is key but vertical space is not (except for the "boink" factor, which I will talk about later). If they are to be housed by themselves or in pairs, a large glass fishtank, 4' long by 1' wide, is ideal. Usually these are 55 gal. capacity, but you can have your pet store order one that is not as deep (and less expensive!) that is known as a "30 gal. long".

Button quails can be very shy, and are easily startled. They are much happier if they have places to hide, so you should add some "extra options" to their cage or aquarium. Baby Spaz has three such hiding places: a bundle of millet sprays tied by the stems and suspended from the side of the tank, an upside-down rectangular box with two doors cut in it (shoebox size), and a cardboard cylinder about 3" diameter by 6" long, with (get this) a silk shoulder pad cut out of a blouse in it to sleep on. (Okay, so he's spoiled!). Real plants are wonderful, but they must be of a sort that are not toxic to birds. Plastic or silk plants also make nice hiding places, and are much easier to maintain.

If you hope to encourage them to breed, I always recommend at least 4 square feet of floor space for a pair, because they run about so much, anything less will seem confining to them, and may lead to them picking on one another. To encourage them to breed, the hen needs a place to "get away" from her mate, so not only floor space, but also "hidey places" as mentioned above (even silk plants) are especially important, and will help to make them feel secure. If you have the space in your home and the resources to build it, an even bigger pen than this is fine. There will never be a problem with having too much space, only too little.

THE BOINK FACTOR

This is very important, so read carefully! When startled, a button quail's first instinct is to fly straight up to get the heck out of there. They're not going to remember if their roof is something hard until it's too late. Boinking into something unyielding can cause serious injury, permanent disability, health problems later in life, and yes, even death. The answer? BOINK-PROOF THE ROOF! It's easy to do, and will save your quail (and you) a lot of headaches later on.

2. Buy two spring tension curtain rods that will expand to at least an inch longer than the aquarium.

3. Hem the long sides of the nylon about 1 1/2 inches so that you have two long "pockets" to thread the curtain rods through.

4. Put the rods into the hems and extend the rods to at least half an inch longer than the aquarium.

5. Put the whole contraption inside the aquarium (easier to do if Button isn't inside) and tuck the curtain rods up under the top edges of the aquarium.

6. Stretch out the netting so it goes from one end of the aquarium to the other. The result should cover the entire opening, but have enough slack so that if your quail boinks UP he'll boink right back DOWN, none the worse for wear.

So, what do they eat? Button Quails are truly omnivorous, requiring animal, vegetable and mineral to be healthy. Their primary need is a diet high in protein, and the staple of their diet should really be "gamebird crumble", which is over 20% protein. If it's too big when you buy it, you can grind it in a coffee grinder or food processor. Small seeds, such as millet, rape and hemp, are fine, and Button will also enjoy fresh vegetables such as tomato and cucumber slices, tiny sprouts, and broccoli (watch the way your quail tosses the broccoli around to get the little buds off, it's too cute!) In addition, you'll want to make sure that Button gets live food as well. Mealworms are a perennial favorite, but you can also serve up some crickets and fly larvae (yes, maggots). All of these are commercially available online or at your local pet store, and are fairly inexpensive (Many online retailers sell mealworms for under $10.00 for 1,000 worms, and if you're really ambitious you can raise your own). Don't feed indoor quails any outdoor bugs. These have been exposed to pesticides, pollution and other atrocities that no health-conscious Button Quail wants in his system. One thing about mealworms, though, is that they are very high in fat content. Too many mealworms are bad for your quail. A safe number to feed an individual button is six per day. If you're interested in nutritional analysis of various forms of live food, click here. For a similar analysis of seeds, click here.

Handy food dish and waterer ideas: Cut holes in plastic lids and put over food dishes (above) to keep feed from being spilled everywhere. For waterers (right), bend up wire coat-hangers to make the waterer easy to hang from the side of the tank.

What about the mineral thing? If you've ever owned birds, you already know that they require grit to help them with digestion. This is also true of Button Quails. In addition to its nutritional value, grit is also important in quail hygeine. Give them access to grit in a shallow bowl big enough for them to sit in, and your button will get in and ruffle, ruffle, ruffle; puffing his feathers up and getting the sand right down to his skin. It must be soothing to the feather follicles, and quails seem to love it. You'll also see them "dust-bathing" in their seeds, wood shavings at the bottom of their home, a bit of fabric on the floor, even a shallow saucer of water!

Button will probably find your houseplants very attractive. Don't let him chew on them, as many of these plants are toxic to animals.

Let's Clear the Air!

You'd be amazed at how many things we have floating around our homes that really aren't good for us, and things that are bad for us can be lethal for a tiny bird. Common sense tells us to be careful not to use solvents, varnishes, bug sprays and cleaning agents anywhere near our birds, but what about teflon pans? Scented candles?! There are many avian health concerns that wouldn't occur to us without some access to specialized information, so I've collected links to several sites devoted to Keeping Your Birds Healthy.